>>I really like Searle. What do you make of his "Chinese Room" argument?
>
>I think that human cognition is a physical process, and if so, it must be
>expressable as an algorithm of some sort. (Penrose's arguments against
>that are highly doubtful.) If human cognition is an algorithm, I am forced
>to concede that Searle's Chinese Room can execute the algorithm.
>
>So, I don't see a problem or a paradox.
>
You're not confronting the question. You're evading it. This seems to be
your central strategy in this entire post. What Searle demonstrates is that
a person can fulfill the functions of a computer without comprehending
*anything.* That means we have no basis for believing that computers
"think," i.e. engage in cognition. Now, do you have any response to this
argument? Do you agree, disagree?
>>>I'm not entirely sure what a mind is, but I firmly believe that human
>>>cognition - thinking, feeling, and planning - all take place within
>>>the confines of the human body.
>>
>>Does the mind not exist? If it does not, then who's hallucinating it? If
>>it does, then why not assume it has properties, namely mental properties
>>like "thinking, feeling, and planning." (You evaded my argument.)
>
>I suppose if I'm going to be completely hinest, I'm not sure that mind
>exists apart from human cognition. If by "mind" the activities of human
>cognition are what you mean, then yes, minds exist as activities of the
>human nervous system. If not, then I have to say the concept is a little
>too nebulous for me to give it much credit.
>
You have now evaded the question twice. The first time you evaded it, I
assumed you simply didn't understand it. Now it's clear that you are not
approaching this discussion with integrity and openness. Your attempt to
change the topic to whether the mind is limited to cognition (a truly
bizarre assertion) is obfuscation.
>The mind may be a kind of linguistic mirage.
Again, if the mind is a mirage, who is hallucinating it? Where is this "entity" that sees this mirage? Is it tucked away in the pineal gland, as Descartes speculated?
>>>A lot of people in the cognitive
>>>sciences see the mind as some kind of program running on the brain's
>>>hardware. I am inclined to disagree - I don't think the brain is
>>>sufficiently abstract in structure to make that work.
>>
>>How could the brain be abstract in its structure? Isn't its structure
>>material?
>
>A personal computer is very abstract in structure. It is not designed to
>do any specific task, instead it can execute general categories of
>algorithms. In this sense, I think humans are not like computers: we are
>not general purpose algorithmic machines.
>
You're confusing function and structure. What you're actually saying is
that its function is abstract. And even here, you're wrong. Blindly
executing algorithms is a concrete task. It's the human interpretation of
the results that's abstract, not the functions themselves (unless of course
they're carried out by a human). There is no abstraction without mentality.
There is only matter, which is not abstract, regardless of what you do with
it.
>Humans are animals.
Humans are *descended* from animals. Humans are also descended from bacteria. Would you say humans are therefore bacteria? Are there not significant differences between humans and animals?
>Animals may be a kind a machine, but they are
>sufficiently unlike the machines that we are used to to make analogies
>suspect.
There is no bases for the belief that animals are a kind of machine. The
fact that so many biologists rigidly maintain this belief just goes to show
that Descartes is alive and well in contemporary science.
>
>>>Humans evolved
>>>to certain bodies and certain environments. Our mental functioning is
>>>a part of our physical functioning, completely dependent on that
>>>environment and evolved to meet the needs of survival within it.
>>
>>No. At 250 KYA (thousand years ago), when a core grammar was in place,
>>consciousness was still exclusively a *social* phenomenon, as it had been
>>since its origins in higher primate evolution. [snip]
>
>I disagree with that history in several respects. Remember, it's very hard
>to deduce the origns of langauge and consciousness from the fossil record.
>
Obviously I'm aware of that. There are quite a few researchers in the field
who feel we have the evidence to make at least a few definitive judgments
about the emergence of human mentality. You sound like a corporate
pseudo-scientist claiming that certainty cannot be attained, so any evidence
that works against your conclusion can be dismissed without consideration.
What you have working for you is not reason or logic or evidence but
established consensus. You've got the power of the herd on your side, so
you feel it's not necessary to engage my arguments. You can just stampede
right over them. This is the attitude of power over reason.
>I don't think consciousness comes from a the breakdown of the modular mind.
And neither do I, and whatever gave you the idea that I said any such thing? You are systematically misreading me. As I said, consciousness arose strictly within the specialized module of social intelligence, developed by higher primates long before the emergence of Homo sapiens.
>Language is not the source of thought, and mathematics doesn't come from
it.
When did I say language is the source of thought?
>Rather, language is a way of communicating that allows ideas to be
>transmitted from person to person rather than having each individual
>have to learn everything they can about the world unaided.
Did I ask for your banal pronouncements on the nature of language?
>It makes social
>evolution possible, granted, but linguistic structures are not the root
>of mathematical ones.
Why should I believe what you say when you offer no basis for your
conclusion? Are you so brilliant and insightful that I should simply nod
every time you open your mouth?
>>
>>If you can prove that *any* mental functions exist in the brain,
(cognition,
>>will, memory, affect, behavioral habits, etc.) then the hypothesis I'm
>>proposing is false. End of discussion.
>
>Oh. Well, I can prove just that sort of thing in animals. I can certainly
>show that in humans brain damage can lead to memory loss. Stimulating
>certain areas in the brain electrically leads to people experiencing
>hallucinations, suddenly remembering strange things, getting particular
>moods. There is a well documented case involving a person who was
>stimulated at a certain spot in the brain and suddenly finding everything
>absolutely hilarious. Is that sufficient evidence?
We've already been over this. It does not logically follow from the fact
that the brain *affects* mentality that it *contains* mentality. And, as
I've already stated, this does not mean that the mind is independent of the
brain. What I've argued is that "brain" and "mind" are both limited
perspectives on the same thing. If we could perceive time the way we
perceive space, we could see the mind-brain in its totality, and this entire
issue would vanish.
>
>>I am not proposing that mental traits are located external to the brain.
>>Time is not external to space. If space is *ex*tended, then time is
>>*in*tended. It's the brain that's external to the mind, for the mind has
no
>>space.
>
>I still don't quite follow this. I know what space is, but I don't see
>how the mind is external to it.
>
Has anyone ever measured mentality in inches?
>>
>>Assuming that the crude notion of "matter" is the whole of mentality has
not
>>helped us discover anything.
>
>Well, yes it has. We can localise a sizeable part of image processing in
>the human mind. We know a great deal about how to modify moods and even
>behaviours and a little bit about how humans plan motions and other
>activities, as well as how some kinds of chemicals can stimulate moods
>and behaviours.
>
In what way has the assumption that mentality is wholly material helped us
obtain any of these discoveries? The useful assumption is not that the mind
is matter but that the brain is intrinsic to mental functioning. And how
could it not be?
>>I'd say "90%" reduction in symptoms.
>
>Fair enough. I'm certainly not a booster for prozac. However, we can,
>using physical methods, affect changes in what is traditionally considered
>the mind.
The point, Scott, is that I'm aware that the mind is affected by the brain,
and it doesn't prove anything.
>
>>Back to our *analogy*: Change the tuner, get a new station-- yet station
not
>>in tuner. Therefore *in all cases* it does not follow from "change
matter,
>>change property" that property arises within matter. You must *prove*
that
>>mind is in brain.
>
>Rather, I'm shifting the burden of proof to you. I see ample evidence
>that physical processes can account for everything humans think and do.
>I see no evidence of the existence of a separate mind. Why then should I
>consider your hypothesis credible?
>
You're making an assertion you can't verify. Then, when I ask for
verification, you claim that I have to verify it's false. You feel that you
can control the terms of the debate, because you've got the weight of
established "wisdom" behind you.
We can easily prove that computers contain information (though technically the information exists only in the mind of the individual interpreting the results of computation). We can go into the guts of a computer and retrieve this information. Of course, we can't do that with the brain. We can't find thoughts or fantasies or recollections in the brain. Now, this might be due to the fact that we didn't build brains and therefore don't understand them as well. Or maybe it's because thoughts don't reside in the brain. I'm arguing that the latter is true, whereas you're *assuming* that the former is true.
>>Your proposal that the mind is in the
>>brain is not falsifiable. No matter how long we wait while
neuroscientists
>>try to "find" the mind, you can always say they're just about to set foot
on
>>abstract soil. Like the Second Coming, it's always right around the
corner.
>
>There is something of a truism in AI. Once you've figured out how
>something works, it doesn't seem that intelligent anymore. I expect
>science to uncover all the stuff that goes on in the brain, and find that
>there isn't anything left that we need a mind for.
You appear to be taking pride in the fact that your opinion is based on
nothing more than blind certainty. I understand what is motivating you.
When I was an ignorant kid, I took pride that I was standing tall on the
battleship America. That's the kind of pride you're exhibiting. Deep down
you love the fact that established "authority" is on your side. You don't
have to argue. You can obliterate me with the push of a button.
>
>>As Chomsky says, there is no problem, because there are no definable
terms.
>>It's not that we understand mind according to matter. It's that we
>>understand neither.
>
>However, we can understand the mind in terms of matter.
If we don't understand what matter is, how can we define anything else against it?
>There is progress,
>although research is by no means near an end. Chomsky sometimes seems to
>think the whole idea is hopeless, but I don't.
>
Worshiping at the altar of progress, eh? Again, you seem to think that your
opinion has some kind of meaning or significance.
>>Time is subjective. If
>>you think it's not, then tell me how long a second is. Try to impart this
>>to me. Give up yet?
>
>A second is the time it takes light to travel ~3*10^8 metres.
And how much time is that?
>Alternatively a second is 9192631770 oscillations of a cesium 133 atom.
You haven't told me how long a second is in terms of time itself. All you can do is translate it into events that involve space or pressure or whatever, as long as it's not time. The point is, I already know how long a second is, and so do you, and so does everyone on earth. Yet we can't communicate this knowledge to each other. The same is true of mentality. We all now happiness and frustration and worry, but our knowledge cannot be translated into objective terms. Once it does get translated into objective terms, like neurons and synapses, then it's not mentality anymore. We must give up our delusions of understanding the mind the way we can understand air pressure or planetary motions or electromagnetism and take it on its own terms. The reason this principle applies to both mentality and time is that mentality is grounded in time. It's your brain on time.
>>>Take a look at a barometer.
>>>What does it measure?
>
>>I don't know. What does it measure? (Barometric pressure?) Whatever it
>>is, it's not time.
>
>No, but you are suggesting time doesn't exist,
On the contrary, you are suggesting that existence is limited to the objectifiable, which erases from reality everything you've ever experienced.
>>Memory is not a property of matter.
>
>No, perhaps not, but matter can represent information.
How could matter represent anything? Matter is simple: A rock is a rock. It does not represent all rocks or rockness or any other rock or anything other than a rock-- it's just itself. A piece of matter is nothing more or less than itself. When we look inside a brain or a computer or any assemblage of molecules, we do not find "representation." We find atoms-- that's it. You are "finding" ideal concepts in material things. Is this a hard-core scientific approach? Sounds more like wide-eyed mysticism to me.
>>It doesn't make sense to conjoin matter and ideal. Newton's
>>synthesis, which brought us the mechanstic paradigm, is not coherent and
has
>>always been wrong.
>
>Huh? How was Newton's description of the universe inconsistent? It is
>wrong in some repsects, but it is certainly coherent.
Newton is essentially a modernized Plato. Instead of positing a Form for every kind of thing, Newton claimed that there are only a few Forms, which he called "Laws," and rather than representing every particular type of thing, they govern the motions which bring these things into existence. Newton extended the Cartesian dualism of mind and matter to the entire universe and applied it to God. The thoughts in God's mind are the principles that bring about the formation of his body, i.e. the cosmos. If Descartes is incoherent, then so is Newton.
>>>I have never heard
>>>of anyone recovering a memory from the brain of a dead man.
>>
>>Has anyone recovered a memory from a live one? I'd certainly like to
know.
>
>Yup. I did just now. I remember going to a seminar at Stanford over the
>weekend
You have no basis for believing that this memory was extracted from your brain. You know perfectly well that I've argued against a reflexive association of mind with brain. Yet, instead of responding to my argument, you go on happily maintaining your assumption, as if my argument is so insignificant that it brushed aside without a second thought. Your entire post is one big insult, one big fuck you from start to finish.
>It isn't faith to think that visual pattern recognition takes place in the
>brain. There is a visible, measurable train of consequences from the sight
>of something to its complete assimliatation.
>
I have no doubt that the brain plays all kinds of important roles in
enabling people to interact with their environment. But as to this last
sentence, it seems to imply that the entirety of vision is contained in the
brain. I don't suppose you have any videotape of this occipital footage.
Ted Dace